From dumpster to table: German foodsharers salvage vegetables

Benjamin Schmittand Helena Jachmann, supporters of the foodsharing movement sort through food found in a dumpster behind a supermarket in Berlin, February 4. Foodsharing is a German internet based platform where individuals, retailers or producers have the possibility of offering surplus food to consumers for free.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Helena Jachmann, supporter of the foodsharing movement holds a pepper found in a dumpster behind a supermarket in Berlin, Feb. 4. Foodsharing is a German internet based platform where individuals, retailers or producers have the possibility of offering surplus food to consumers for free.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Benjamin Schmitt and Helena Jachmann, supporters of the foodsharing movement sort food found in a dumpster behind a supermarket in Berlin, Feb. 4.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Raphael Fellmer, a supporter of the foodsharing movement shows Christmas biscuits collected from waste bins of supermarket at his home in Berlin, on Jan. 31.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

Raphael Fellmer, a supporter of the foodsharing movement has lunch with his partner Nieves Palmer Muntaner, with food cooked from vegetables from waste of an organic supermarket in Berlin, on Jan. 24.

By Stephen Brown, Reuters

Published at 11:15a.m. ET: BERLIN - Just past midnight behind a Berlin supermarket, two youngsters with torches strapped to their woollen hats sift through rubbish bins for food that is still edible, load their bikes with bread, vegetables and chocolate Santas and cycle off into the darkness.

It is not poverty that inspires a growing number of young Germans like 21-year-old student Benjamin Schmitt to forage for food in the garbage, but anger at loss and waste which the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates at one-third of all food produced worldwide, every year, valued at about $1 trillion. Continue Reading.